Don’t Meet Your Heroes!
‘Don’t meet your heroes’ is an expression we’re used to repeating to one another, for instance when we no longer take a fancy to our idol after becoming acquainted with them — when we ‘discover’ details that we didn’t know about before or confront a trait we dislike personally — and turn around our sentence ‘Oh, my favorite person’ into ‘Oh, my favorite villain’, or ‘Oh, secondary character’.
What happens is that in one puff of air, we exclude the hero from our lives as we’ve become acquainted with his or her human side, which in turn makes us aware that we’re quite a bit different.
The Human Side of Heroes
When we find out that our heroes are not just as great as we thought, we can fall into disappointment: we no longer see them as they are, but as we might wish them to be.
We start looking to them for a sense of connection — seeing in them a part of ourselves. When we find ourselves disappointed by the person behind the facade — someone flawed or less than all the yaws start to feel like our own, and so we respond by turning against them.
Suddenly, our hero turns into a bad guy. Who knew?
This occurs because we tend to place people we admire on such a lofty status that we feel disappointed when they reveal ordinary human tendencies. Yet it is our expectations, not the heroes, that are at fault.
Changing Opinions
We might change our minds about things too — about the same people we thought great. We might decide that our favorite person is a prima donna or a bore. The fact that others change their minds about us is irrelevant. The reason why they have changed their minds is irrelevant; we can’t complain to each other that we won’t accept each other.
Even the things we do every day, the lifestyle we try to lead, can be dull, for example when we would like to change and renew because the situation has become familiar, perhaps too familiar. A little change can sometimes help us continue doing what we are doing and as we are doing it.
Sometimes, it is necessary to feel new to continue living in a way that feels correct to us.
You Are the Villain in Someone Else’s Story
As people on social media write: ‘You are the bad guy in someone else’s story.’ Not an absolute truth but rather a reflection of the many differences between us and the world — in our personality and nature — that leave little hope for us to find true harmony in the many people who we are bound to cross paths with during our lives.
Even under the blissful banner of a strong spiritual or psychic bond, we will not locate this mysterioso Significant Other without blemish; the other will no doubt also view certain aspects of us as abhorrent and irksome.
Finding Balance
We can try to be nice.
We can try to seek out those around us that we feel least bad about.
We can try to ignore trivial points on the imperfection scale, to try harder not to destroy everything because we can’t find something exactly to our liking.
We can try, like everyone else, not to be as boring as we think others are.
Ultimately we have to accept them, and continue to sustain our passion and our admiration, but without ruining it all by trying to crush them beneath the impossibly high expectations we hold. This is how we can sustain more robust, enduring relationships, and preserve the promise of the admired ones, without betraying them.
Hey, thanks for checking this out! I’m eager to hear your thoughts on it.
